That Abdel Fateh Younes, the longtime enforcer for Muammar Qaddafi whose stunning defection to the Libyan rebellion in February was an early indication of the depth of the challenge to Qaddafi’s regime, is dead, you can take to the bank. General Younes had been head of the embryonic rebel army from practically the moment he’d switched sides.

As far as the rest of the story – who killed him, when, precisely where, and why – all remains murk and conjecture, created by cross-cutting rivalries within the rebellion and the often misleading and contradictory way that Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) communicates with the press and the Libyan public.

Let’s recap, we can drop thousands of tons of bombs on Libya, kill civilians, destroy infrastructure, and yet Muammar Gaddafi is still alive and well, thumbing his nose at Obama. Meanwhile, our Libyan allies, the Transitional National Council (TNC) are busy killing each other and they have no hope of ever sacking Tripoli. So, The Beat Goes On, a stalemate and, adding insult to ridiculousness, the U.S. taxpayer is stuck picking up the tab for this “Three Stooges go to war” farce.

/where’s Samantha Power been these last few months, anyone seen her, she’s got a hell of a lot of explaining to do?